Master Books 5th Grade Math Review: My Honest Thoughts

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Considering using the Master Books 5th grade Math Lessons for a Living Education curriculum for your child, but not sure if it’ll provide a well-rounded, quality math education? I’ve been checking out this Christian homeschool curriculum with my very own 5th grader, so let me help you figure out if Master Books curriculum could be the right fit for your homeschooling goals.

There are many perks of homeschooling that my family and I especially love (like being able to travel during the “off” season!), but, as a former teacher, I’d have to say…being able to hand-select the educational materials & curriculum is absolutely priceless. Our kids get to benefit from a completely customized education!

There are literally thousands of curriculum options to choose from, but I’ve been hearing about Master Books since day 1 of our homeschooling journey. While Master Books does offer complete homeschool curriculum options for Pre-K through 12th grade, I need to be completely honest and let you know – our experience reviewing their 5th grade math program was our very first time experiencing their curriculum.

Gasp! I know, right?!

What took us so long? What do we think about their math curriculum? Would we make any changes? Do we think it’s a quality program?

Buckle up, I’ve got a lot to share about our experience with Level 5 of Math Lessons for a Living Education from Master Books.

Spoiler Alert – there’s a giveaway at the end of this post! Don’t miss it!

About Master Books

Master Books publishes Christian homeschool curriculum with the goal of “growing a student’s faith in their Creator and His Word in a way that will have a lasting and eternal impact” while focusing on making learning both simple and meaningful. The offer educational materials created for students as young as 3 years old through 12th grade in a wide range of subjects all from a biblical perspective.

While the curriculum sets are categorized by the standard core subjects – like math, science, history, and language arts – lessons are emphasized by real-world learning to provide a well-rounded education for the students. In addition, curriculum is designed to be “open & go,” ensuring parents and children have the option to start using materials nearly immediately after opening up a curriculum delivery.

Sounds great, right? But why did it take us so long to give Master Books a try?

Up until recently, the majority of our homeschooling materials have been leaning on the secular side. We hadn’t felt the need to include any curriculum with faith-based activities because, honestly, I’ve had quite a few experience in life that have made me question my faith. And that’s ok – we’re all different people living different lives…all growing and learning at our own pace. I just didn’t feel comfortable including faith-based activities in our homeschool.

Now though? If you’ve seen one of my recent TikTok videos, you know things have changed over the past few months…and thank goodness for that! Over the past few months, I’ve been sprinkling in some faith-based education & activities for the kids. We’ve really been enjoying all the “new-to-us” learning activities (I have a basic understanding, but the boys are practically brand newbies!).

Isn’t that great? Now that we got “all that” taken care of, let’s chat a bit more in depth about the 5th Grade Math Lessons for a Living Education curriculum shall we?

Master Books 5th Grade Math Curriculum

Officially, the 5th grade Math Lessons for a Living Education curriculum is mastery-based with spiral reviews of math concepts. This means that, throughout the year, the student will master grade-level content while continuously building upon, and revisiting, math concepts they’ve learned in the past. Sounds great, right?

While there is the option of online instruction (more on that later), the student workbook is designed to provide a full 5th grade math education over the course of 36 weeks (or 180 days) through the completion of daily hands-on lessons. Daily lessons should take no more than 30 minutes, making this open-and-go curriculum super manageable and not overwhelming for the kids.

The 5th grade Master Books math curriculum contains a total of 36 lessons covering:

• reviews of
  • addition
  • subtraction
  • division
  • multiplication
  • geometry
  • measurements
  • fractions
  • decimals
• factors
• 2 digit divisors
• proper & improper fractions
• common denominators
• multiplying & dividing decimals…and more!

Key Components of Math Lessons for a Living Education, Level 5

If you ask me, the unique content of the Master Books 5th grade math lessons is what really makes this curriculum stand out! The student workbook is way more than “just” worksheets with math problems to solve – each lesson includes a number of activities to help ensure the kids learn in a number of ways making this curriculum amazing for teaching kids with a variety of learning styles.

Stories

I am ALL for including a bit of reading whenever possible. While I grew up reading chapter book after chapter book, my boys tend to go back and forth between a love & an aversion to reading. They’re not me – I get it! But, Master Books does a great job at including a fun (& educational) reading passage to the beginning of every lesson.

Throughout the 5th grade math curriculum, students start each lesson by reading a portion of a story of siblings Charlie, Charlotte, Natty, and Hairo. Within the 36 lessons, they’re earning money & managing it responsibly, helping to plan the church VBS program, planning a family fiesta and more.

The stories are typically a page or two long and, in my opinion, aren’t an overwhelming read. They help to support to math concepts being taught in the curriculum while including some reading, life skills lessons, and faith-based messages.

In addition to providing some “extra” educational benefits, I can totally see the story being a great way to encourage those struggling with math to continue working hard! It’s like a reward for completing a task…a little extra motivation to complete the math problems so they can move on and read the next portion of the story!

Review

At the beginning of each Master Books math lesson, there is a short math review following the story – this is the spiral review I mentioned previously. While some may find review to be redundant, studies have shown that math review can help to develop math fluency. There will always be calculators, but there’s certainly value in being able to nearly-immediately answer a multiplication math fact or sum of 2 numbers for example.

Copywork

There are, of course, varying viewpoints on the importance of copywork, but I am 100% of the mindset that copywork can be beneficial! Within each Master Books math lesson, there are a few short sections of copywork.

Being from the 1900s (that’s a joke…but also accurate) and from the “before” era of modern technology, I have spent my fair share of time doing copywork and, you know what – it helped me in so many ways! Benefits of copywork include:

• improved handwriting: regularly copying well-written text can help children to develop neat and legible handwriting
• enhanced spelling and grammar: seeing correctly spelled words and proper punctuation reinforces language rules naturally (I blog the way I speak, though, so…not sure that benefit lasted me very long)
• increased attention to detail: completing copywork requires focus, thus improving a child’s ability to concentrate and carefully reproduce text
• developing writing skills: exposure to quality writing structures and sentence patterns can help kids to internalize great writing habits
• memorization & information retention: repeated exposure to meaningful texts (like math facts!) can aid in memory and comprehension

The kids may drag their feet (or their pencils) a bit, but who are we to argue with the proven benefits of copywork?!

Hands-On Activities

All quality math curriulum offer some sort of hands-on activity, or problem-solving, but, after experiencing portions of this homeschool math curriculum with my own 5th grader, it’s obvious to me that Master Books has put their own spin on the task of completing math problems.

Sure, the kids will find the typical “solve these problems” assignments, but they’ll also find fun activities, too like:

• delicious & easy-to-follow recipes: these go along with the wholesome storyline and also incorporate functional math & life skills!
• soduku puzzles: remember when soduku puzzles were all the rage in the 90s? I do! There are so many benefits to completing soduku puzzles, the kids won’t even realize they’re learning while solving the puzzles!
• crossword puzzles: looking through the student workbook, I saw crossword puzzles ranging from math to bible-themes.

Master Books Academy

While the majority of the Master Brooks 5th grade math program is presented through a hard-copy workbook, Master Books Academy is an optional online Christian learning platform. It’s not required to complete the curriculum, but provides teacher instruction on the math concepts covered in each lesson. In addition, it also contains an audio reading of the story at the beginning of each lesson. I know online learning isn’t for everyone, but this could be especially helpful for our visual and auditory learners.

While completing this review, and a portion of the curriculum with my son, I did have access to the 5th grade math resources through Master Books Academy. As a former teacher & current homeschooling parent, I can honestly say I see the value in including this online resource because:

• it’s password protected: while viewing videos, my son & I were not subjected to any ads. This made for a screen free of distractions, allowing us to focus on the content being presented.
• it’s reasonably priced: currently $59.95, I feel an entire year’s worth of video instruction is well worth the price
• it allows for flexible learning: while this math curriculum is designed to be completed over the course of a year, access to the Master Brooks Academy is valid for 18 months. If “life happens” and your child needs more time to get through all the online lessons, they’ll have access to the videos past the year!

How We Feel About Math Lessons for a Living Education, Level 5

I’ve shared the components of this Christian homeschool math curriculum, but how do I really feel about it? How does my son really feel about it?

Let’s chat a bit more!

We Like…

I know parents say it all the time, but my 11-year-old really is a smart cookie. The kid can carry a conversation with a person of any age, on nearly any topic (& would especially love chatting about military or US history), but, for whatever reason, he seems to second guess himself while completing his math lessons. This makes math a particularly painful subject for the two of us to tackle, but we always eventually get through it.

With the Master Books curriculum, though, it seemed like completing math lessons was less torturous than usual. He really liked how the daily lessons weren’t incredibly time consuming and were broken down into sections that were manageable and not overwhelming. He did struggle with some of the soduku & crosssword puzzles, but would eventually complete them.

I appreciate Master Books including the puzzles in the portion of the lesson that would be completed on Friday (if following the Monday-Friday work week) because it allowed my son to close the book when it got too overwhelming. He would then finish the puzzle during quiet parts of the weekend. This worked wonderfully!

As far as the stories went, my 11-year-old is still working on his faith. You how how the saying goes: “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” I feel like the stories helped to open up the line of communication and will eventually be seen as stepping stones for him. This works for me!

As a homeschooling parent, I feel my favorite parts of this 5th grade math curriculum are:

• affordability: with a current list price of $48.99, I find this curriculum to be incredibly affordable! A whole year’s worth of a math education for less than the price of a family dinner at a chain restaurant…it’s a great value!
• workbook organization: I love that the workbook is super organized. One page per day makes lessons super manageable for the kids and easy for me to keep track of
• lesson plans: in the beginning of the workbook, there’s a schedule for the entire year! It breaks lessons down first into yearly quarters (fabulous for planning lessons), then into weeks, and then days. Organizing daily lessons can be overwhelming at times, so I certainly appreciate Master Books taking the time to do the lesson planning for me
• multifaceted lessons: Even though this curriculum could “just” be math, I definitely appreciate Master Books including stories on life lessons and faith & opportunities to develop and strengthen functional life skills within each and every lesson. They’ve gone above and beyond my expectations in this regard.

• flexibility: my boys and I love to travel & experience life outside of the home. I definitely appreciate the fact that Master Books created their lessons to only require 20-30 minutes to complete, leaving us plenty of time to enjoy time together. Plus, since the curriculum is mainly the workbook (there are some manipulatives that may need to be used from time to time), math lessons can easily be completed, say, in the van on the way to a science museum!
• perforated pages: this may seem trivial, but hear me out! Workbooks containing an entire year’s worth of lessons could certainly seem overwhelming. Having the option to easily tear out a few pages at a time, a week’s worth of lessons, can work wonders when teaching a child who may deal with anxiety.
• the teaching companion: the Math Teaching Companion could be viewed as an optional part of this Master Books curriculum, but it really does seem to be helpful…especially if you plan on including multiple grades worth of their math curriculum. Just the one book covers helpful tips, teaching strategies, and suggestions for getting the most out of the Math Lessons for a Living Education curriculum. With a current list price of $21.99, I would definitely suggest including this resource to your Master Books order.

Potential Drawbacks…

Honestly, my experience with the Master Books Lessons for a Living Education curriculum has been pretty positive. I don’t know that I would necessarily change anything, but I would definitely consider supplementing the daily math activities with additional practice on an as-needed basis.

My son, for example, sometimes has trouble with remembering his multiplication facts. Since having a solid understanding of multiplication facts is SO important and necessary for progressing, I’ve printed out additional worksheets with math problems for him to solve. I’ve also printed out additional blank copies of the 10×10 multiplication fact chart for him to fill in and refer to from time to time.

It’s also worth noting that, obviously, this Christian homeschool curriculum may not fit the needs of:

• families with a preference for secular homeschool materials
• children who struggle with independent learning

Your situation is likely different than mine, though, so you may find this 5th grade math curriculum to be perfect as it! That’s totally ok, too – it’s the beauty of homeschooling! How blessed are we to be able to create an education customized around the needs and strengths of our children?!

Enter the Giveaway!

One lucky winner will be selected to receive their grade level choice of a Math Lessons for Living Education curriculum! How awesome would it be for one of my readers to win the giveaway?!

Happy Homeschooling!

I’m so glad I got to share this Master Books math curriculum with you all today! It’s really opened my eyes up to all Master Books has to offer – I’m quite impressed with how the curriculum writers were able to include so many hands-on and meaningful life lessons within the pages of the math workbook.

What do you think? Have you tried any curriculum from Master Books before? If so, which Master Books curriculum are your favorites? If not, are you thinking of giving them a try after reading my review? Leave a comment below or share your thoughts in my free Facebook community: That Homeschool Family Hangout.

Until next time, stay safe and enjoy quality time with your family,